Over at Paul’s apartment, Kyle shows up for his date with Kate, only to find her still her in her dressing gown. “Am I too early?” he asks. “Yes, by about half an hour!” replies Kate.

“Aw jeez, sorry Kate,”apologises Kyle. “My new watch has these confusing little sticks on it that point to hours and minutes, so I had to try to tell what time it was by looking at the sun”

Over at the nursery, Toadie confronts Jacob over his romantic overtures made toward Sonya, and tells him that he no longer wants to represent him.

“You gotta help me!” protests Jacob. “I could lose Elliot!”

“And I need him to pull chicks!” he pleads. “Ladies love the single-dad angle. Especially married ladies.” he adds, with a wink

Back at the penthouse suite, Kyle prepares a cocktail he’s just invented and presents it to Kate. “I call it the solar eclipse,”he notes.

“Cos it’ll get you blind!”

The following morning, Paul receives a text message and despondently relays its contents to Kate. “Sophie and Harry can’t make it to my party” he sighs.

Paul’s surprise that close friends and relatives, once departed from Erinsborough, wouldn’t return for a significant occasion back on Ramsay st suggests he hasn’t been paying attention in his 30 years on the show

TUE

Outside no. 22, having imbibed of Kyle’s concoction, Imogen walks to school with the help of Amber, who acts as her seeing eye dog, and who asks about her complicated relationship with Mason.

Further on the walk to school, Imogen extols the virtues of Isaac, noting that he is ‘smart and funny’. “And a squatter,” objects Amber, sharply.

“Coming from the girl who snuck into the Kapoor house to hook up with my brother!” replies Imogen.

It seems like it would have been more appropriate for Imogen to bring up the time Amber fucked Robbo when he was squatting at piratenet. I guess the writers forgot about that.

Outside Lassiters, Georgia confides in Susan about her pregnancy, telling her how helpful she’s been, and that she ‘doesn’t know what she’d do without her.’

“If not for you I guess I’d have to speak to my parents, and they don’t even live on Ramsay St!” she mutters in a subdued whisper, mindful of the penalties that exist for speaking of the others.

Over at the hotel, the staff are experiencing something of a crisis without Terese on hand – luckily, Lucy Robinson shows up just in time to direct an aimless and flustered Mason. “You’d better get those people checked in,” she suggests, motioning toward the unmanned front desk, “Before they decide to go somewhere else!”

Unfortunately, Mason’s problems don’t end there, as he lets Lucy know that the head chef of Lassiters has walked out, and they need someone ASAP. “Good thing I happen to know the perfect replacement,” replies Lucy confidently.

And by ‘perfect replacement’, she means his unskilled mother who works in the local sandwich shop. I wonder how the Lasiters sous chefs, who laboured for years for such an opportunity feel about this

Later at Harold’s, Kate and Lucy share a coffee and gossip about Kate’s life, which she describes as ‘boring’. “Boring-boring?” asks Lucy, “Or Boring-Interesting?”

Having never heard these terms before, I can only conclude that they are jargon used by the show’s writers to describe forthcoming storylines in team meetings.

Over at number 24, Imogen and Isaac find themselves trapped in a closet while evading a realtor’s house inspection, leading to an awkward scene where they discuss kissing one another within the context of a dry legal discussion about sexual assault and rape. It’s supposed to be light-hearted fun, and to be fair it does make a nice change from the writers’ usual jokes about cancer and genocide.

“Wow,” remarks Isaac. “The tension between us is as hot as Hitler’s ovens.”

Over at no. 30, Kyle chats to Georgia about his relationship with Kate and how she too appears to be moving on with Jacob. It’s an awkward conversation with uncomfortable truths, and it isn’t until Kyle’s left the house and is standing on her doorstep that he realises what it is he truly wants.

It’s the occasion of Paul’s 50th, and naturally, no one has shown up to celebrate it, though the writers cannily suggest this is due to Paul’s Scrooge-like personality. If it weren’t obvious enough, they then have the ghost of christmas past, aka Lucy, show up to take him to their old residence and shares with him some flashbacks to indicate how embittered he’s become with age.

Honestly, I’ve seen porn where the point has been rammed home with more subtlety.

THU

Over at the coffee shop, Lucy attempts to convince Terese to manage Lassiters again, as does Brad, who has become accustomed to the good life.

He’s developed a taste for the bacon she’s been bringing home, when all he can afford is spam.

At the coffee shop, Mason brushes up on his global warming research and seeks to impress Imogen with newfound knowledge, but is made to wait by Bailey, who imparts upon Mason some timeless advice. “We have a saying in Dragon prophecies,” he says. “Never attempt an attack on the castle of Fantos until you’ve done the ritual of oak and mistletoe!”

There’s no fucking way that would be a popular saying for any group, in any context.

Over at no. 22, an exasperated Terese hangs up on a conversation and informs Imogen that she’d just been speaking to the Lassiters marketing department. “Typos in the print ads!” she scoffs. “Honestly!”

If only she’d applied the same rigorous proofreading to the coffee shop menu

Later, at no.32, after Mason’s advances are sternly rejected by Imogen, he loudly bemoans the hours he spent studying for her affections.

“You fool!” admonishes Bailey. “Without the mystical Mage Wand of Methistocles you only stood a 27.6% chance of surviving that encounter!”

To make matters worse, Imogen herself then storms in and berates Mason for having bothered her at work, calling him an idiot and storming out, though Mason seemly oddly pleased with this development. “Hear that?” he asks Bailey. “She called me an idiot. She only does that when we’re flirting!”

“And when we’re making out she likes to tell me I’m worthless and deserve to have been abused as a child!” he notes, cheerfully.

FRI

Over at Paul’s apartment, he suggests to Kate that perhaps she and Kyle aren’t ‘meant to be together’

“So I betrayed my best friend and broke up her relationship for what? Honestly, for what? I want to know!”

Stunned by Paul’s frank assessment, Kate has a moment of introspection. “Kyle knows me better than anyone,” she refects. “And if he doesn’t like me, then…”

THAT’S RIGHT, NO ONE LIKES YOU! LEAVE ERINSBOROUGH ALREADY. SHIT!

Over at Charlie’s, having been foiled in his attempt at breaking up with Kate by way of an urgent call from Sonya, Kyle finishes his beer and resolves to go through with it. ‘No excuses,’ he announces firmly to Chris as he begins to stride purposefully toward the door of the bar. Surely nothing will stop him now?

Now, I know Neighbours, and one of the most common examples of their terrible writing is the way in which characters are frequently interrupted in the process of delivering important news – but twice in one episode, involving the same character? That’s a new low.

But on the upside, at least Georgia appears to be dead

The only way I can see the writers redeeming themselves for this moment of hackneyed bullshit is to make this a running gag, where within each episode Kyle is interrupted while attempting to break up with Kate, in increasingly ludicrous circumstances.